I signed my acknowledgement of the caution – which, Samantha said, meant I’d be released sooner – then joined another queue of women waiting to be searched by two WPCs. We were being taken one by one into a room. The door was shut, I noticed, which was a relief – at least there’d be privacy, I thought. The women emerging again wore a variety of expressions from weariness to grumpiness. Nobody seemed traumatised though. My turn came, and I was ushered into the room, which was empty except for a desk with an overhead projector and two bored-looking female officers. My stomach was churning.

‘Oh look, another teddy bear,’ said the taller of the two – a woman with a ferocious, blonde Vera Duckworth perm. ‘Slip that off for me, love.’

I unzipped the front of my bear costume and let the furry shoulders drop to the floor so I was standing quivering in my bra and pants. It was cold in here, and I felt goosebumps sweep across the bare skin of my chest and stomach.

‘Good girl. Just pull your pants forwards; let’s have a quick check.’

It was the most humiliating moment of my life. Even worse than when I got my period as I walked into town wearing white jeans.

I hooked my thumbs into my flowery M&S knickers and pulled them away from my abdomen, staring hard at the ceiling tiles and trying very hard not to cry. But it was a) painless, b) over in a second, and c) neither of the women donned rubber gloves and stuck their fingers inside me as I’d feared they might, so that was a win. They were the first people ever to see my pubic hair.

I told Samantha that later, in a blurt of confession, and she laughed, which made my heart leap.

‘Funny old world,’ she said affectionately, in a mock-British accent.

19

Present Day
Meredith

Meredith heard them clatter down the metal steps from the carpark to the wharf – a man and a woman, unmistakably detectives; dressed like middle management, walking with authority. The man was broad-shouldered and morose, his jacket sleeves too short for the length of his arms. The woman was younger and friendlier-looking, with a mass of curly blonde hair and slightly protuberant front teeth.

‘I’d like to live on a boat,’ the woman was saying. ‘So cosy. Wood-burning stove, sunrises on the water…’

‘Icy decks in winter,’ her colleague retorted. ‘Rats running up the ropes. Can’t think of anything worse.’

So he was as cheery as he looked, then. Meredith ducked out of sight behind a porthole, wondering if she had time to get dressed. The PC who’d come to Minstead when she’d rung 999 had said someone would come and interview her, but not who or what time.